A Thai Fried Chicken Joint, a Vietnamese Coffee Shop, and Other Exciting Austin Restaurant Openings to Know Right Now

Every month, a new crop of restaurants opens in and around Austin. While everyone loves a good sushi spot, food truck, or outdoor patio, this round-up will give you the high-end spots and the low-end spots that are new to town — be they good, bad, or so bad they’re good/so good they’re bad. Whether it’s a locally owned restaurant or the latest addition of a chain, here’s what’s happening in the world of restaurant openings in Austin and beyond for the month.

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Bar Hacienda

400 Colorado Street, Downtown

This Downtown speakeasy, located in the basement of cocktail lounge Tiger Lily, serves innovative cocktails, including the horchata milk punch, a chocolate Old Fashioned made with cacao butter bourbon, and the Miami Nice, featuring coconut oil, pineapple rum, strawberry water, pineapple foam, and lime dust. Bar Hacienda also features two non-alcoholic options: the Lemongrass and Lime (Lemongrass, kaffir lime, citrus & soda) and Apples (Fresh apple, elderflower tonic & citrus). Open Wednesday through Saturday, from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Bar Hacienda

Kaizabb Thai

7221 McNeil Drive, North Austin

The owners behind Austin-based Nashville-style hot chicken joint Dang Hot 89 recently opened this new fast-casual spot. Kaizabb Thai pairs plates of rice and crispy fried chicken infused with Thai flavors, including creamy curries and a variety of spices, sauces, and herbs. Diners can choose their spice level, and cool down with Thai teas. Desserts include fried bananas drizzled in honey.

Café Largesse

2800 Barton Creek Boulevard. Suite #104, Barton Creek

Nestled in the Barton Creek area, this all-day neighborhood cafe and wine bar offers a space to unwind with coffee from Wild Gift Coffee and pastries from Sour Duck. The restaurant also prides itself on providing a menu of shareable plates, including sandwiches, salads, loaded toasts, breakfast tacos, parfaits, and more, that are free from seed oils. Its evening menu, offered starting at 5 p.m., features more options, including red-wine braised short rib and charcuterie boards. To-go and delivery options, including wine delivery, are available.

Kabab Ghar Austin

10501 North Interstate 35, Windsor Hills

This Bangladeshi food truck opened in Windsor Hills, offering a halal menu of street foods with bold flavors from South Asian cuisine, including kebab plates and wraps, biryani, crispy fuchka, and juicy barbecued fish. Diners can also indulge in sweet treats like mango lassi and its Mishti Dahi, a traditional Bengali dessert made with fermented milk, curd culture, and sweetened with jaggery or sugar.

Kabab Ghar Austin

Naatu Indian Food

6901 Ranch to Market Road, Suite 620, Four Points

This food truck opened in Austin’s Four Points in March, serving Indian cuisine, including more traditional dishes such as naan, samosas, and plates of tikka and butter masalas, as well as Hyderabadi Chicken Dum Biryani and other specialties. Diners can go out of the box with the Desi fries. Dessert and drinks are also on the menu, featuring options such as mango lassi, filtered coffee, masala chai, and gulab jamun.

Mica’s Burritos

4507 E Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, Bldg. 2, East MLK

Burritos, breakfast tacos, and coffee drinks abound at this new breakfast hotspot in East MLK. Diners can enjoy different styles of egg-filled breakfast burritos, including its chilaquiles burrito, a cheesesteak burrito, and a version stuffed with chicken. A vegan option, stuffed with beans, potatoes, sliced onion, mushrooms, and avocado, is also available. Order through the walk-up window, through the drive-thru, or order ahead for curbside to-go service.

Mica’s Burritos

CaPhe.in Coffee

3016 Guadalupe Street, #175, Heritage

This new Austin coffee shop specializes in phin-dripped Vietnamese egg coffee, Vietnamese coffee, matcha drinks, and fruit teas. Go for more classic styles of Vietnamese coffees, or try different flavored options, such as Coco Ube Coffee, Black Sesame, or Viet Caramel. Select croissants are also available.

Sushi | Bar Austin and Golden Ace

419 West 2nd Street, Downtown

This omakase restaurant relocated to its new space in the Warehouse District, along with the debut of its new cocktail lounge, Golden Ace. Sushi | Bar features two dining rooms, each seating 12 people, and serves a 17-course menu with innovative takes on nigiri prepared before your eyes, accompanied by optional sake and wine pairings. Golden Ace, which can fit up to 40 people, serves Japanese-style drinks with “Texas spirit,” according to its website. Drinks include Furusato, a blend of gin, myoga, genmaicha tea, yuzu, and sea bean, and Okujo Love Affair, a combination of mezcal, Campari, sake, miso butter, curry spices, and banana.

Sushi | Bar Austin

Pins Mechanical Co.

4323 South Congress Avenue, South Congress

An outpost of this bar and entertainment venue opened earlier this year, offering a variety of activities, including duckpin bowling, arcade games, pinball, and yard games. Three full bars on-site serve beer, wine, cocktails, and mocktails, but Pins doesn’t have its own restaurant, meaning hungry guests should bring their own food, have it delivered, or order from the rotation of featured food trucks.

Marimbas Guatemalan Bakery & Restaurant

11220 North Lamar Boulevard, B-275, North Lamar

Opened in December, this bakery and restaurant offers a variety of Guatemalan dishes and treats, starting with breakfast. Diners can begin the day with platanos chacha or a standard dish of beans, rice, and plantains, or stop in for caldo de res or chile rellenos for lunch. Other options include Marimba’s enchiladas, tamales, tostados, and Guatemalan-style taquitos.

Marimbas Guatemalan Bakery & Restaurant

Parish Barbecue

3220 Manor Road, MLK

Located behind Batch Craft Beer & Kolaches, this food truck opened in late March, boasting an interesting fusion of Central Texas barbecue and Louisiana cuisine. Pitmaster Holden Fulco, formerly of Austin’s Franklin Barbecue and Interstellar BBQ, taps into his Louisiana roots, offering slow-cooked meats and homemade sausages that are hickory-smoked on a 1,000-gallon Bison offset pit. Other offerings include ham cured in-house, pulled duck with spiced cracklins made from the duck skin, and Southern-style sides such as Acadiana potato salad, remoulade vinegar slaw, and a crawfish cornbread dressing. Though it is a barbecue joint, vegetarians have options, too. You won’t miss the meat after a bite of the smoked vegetable muffuletta.

Parish Barbecue

Electric Gravy

1050 E 11th Street, Suite #100, East Austin

Located near Franklin Barbecue, this Mumbai bar and restaurant opened in March, merging an array of bold flavors from India with a Texas flair. Electric Gravy serves colorful drinks and food, featuring samosas and “gravies,” including saag paneer, pork vindaloo, and chana masala over basmati rice. The Bombay sandwiches might be the most eclectic combination on the menu, with fried chicken wrapped in naan and grilled cheeses infused with butter chicken, chutneys, and saag paneer. In addition to wine and craft beers, Electric Gravy offers its spin on cocktails, like its Mahsarata Mule (vodka, kokum, lemon, cucumber, and Fever Tree ginger beer), and the Mumba 75, a rendition of the French 75 that infuses dry gin with rosewater, cardamom, lemon, and sparkling wine. There is also a dirty chai espresso martini, and frozen drinks like a Lassi Painkiller and Electric’s signature margarita.

Electric Gravy

Haywire

11501 Rock Rose Avenue, #100

FB Society, the Dallas-based hospitality group behind restaurants like Velvet Taco and Mexican Sugar, opened the fifth location of Haywire in Austin on Tuesday, March 25. Located in the Domain Northside, the rustic multi-level restaurant aims to capture the spirit of Texas in its massive 13,000-square-foot space, which features a Longhorn Lounge and a Shasta-style trailer for a rooftop retreat on the second-floor patio. Diners will find dishes like hand-cut steaks, elk tacos, and fancy whiskey drinks, including an Old Fashioned that is smoked tableside.

The Nix Company

YoYo’s Hot Dog

Dobie Center, 2308 Rio Grande Street

Houston’s hot dog shop has made its way to Austin, but you’ll have to go to the University of Texas at Austin’s food court to eat there. Located in UT’s Dobie Center, the new stall serves its signature oversized hot dog topped with cream cheese and sriracha-honey mayo, served on a toasted bun. Diners can get their hot dog in vegetarian form, and add fun sides like wings, fries (served plain or bulgogi style), and Fritos pies to their order.

Bungalow

83 Rainey Street, Downtown

This Downtown bar made its big return on Sunday, March 23, opening in the space that once housed the now-shuttered Icenhauer’s. The aptly-named Bungalow, which is in a converted house, touts itself as a laidback, dog-friendly watering hole, with drink specials, live music and DJS, backyard games, and sports games broadcast on their TVs. The bar, which features a spacious back patio and rotation of food trucks, originally opened on Rainey Street and later closed in 2022 to make way for a high-rise, according to a Culturemap Austin report.

Bungalow

1972

2530 Guadalupe Street, Downtown

Austin’s first women’s sports pub opened in the heart of Downtown just ahead of March Madness. Named after the year Title IX was codified, guaranteeing access to all educational programs regardless of sex, 1972 prides itself on being a space where women’s sports are celebrated and appreciated. Expect large TVs throughout the space with prime views of games, fun sports memorabilia, and a full bar that includes local craft beer from woman-owned companies and brewers. Food includes burgers and wings with homemade sauces.

Xu Xu’s Dumplings

5610 North Interstate 35, North Loop

Named using the Mandarin word for “uncle,” this dumpling-focused restaurant hosted its grand opening in late January, offering a mashup of Taiwanese and Bolivian street foods inspired by the chefs’ upbringings. The menu features Taiwanese potstickers, pork dumplings marinated in Japanese curry, Lo Ba Bung (braised pork belly on rice), and cheese and chicken Bolivian empanadas. The prices are pretty affordable, with $2 potstickers, $7 rice bowls, and a $11 meal that comes with a rice bowl, two potstickers, and a water.

XuXu’s Dumplings

DAM-A Korean Hot Pot

713 East Huntland Drive, North Austin

This all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue and hot pot spot opened in mid-January. DAM-A offers Korean staples, Korean-style fried chicken, and tteokbokki, or simmered rice cakes, plus a variety of broths for hot pot to choose from (tomato, seafood, tonkotsu, miso, mushroom, and spicy mala). Appetizers include a wide array of dishes, like japchae, spaghetti, fried rice, and sweet and sour pork. Diners can also dabble in the spring roll bar, which is also unlimited. The restaurant is open daily, with dinner starting after 3 p.m. on weekdays and served all day on weekends for $36 per person ($16 for kids between ages 6 and 12). During the week, DAM-A offers lunch before 3 p.m. for $26 per person ($12 for kids between the ages of 6 and 12). Kids under the age of 5 always eat free.

Elsewhere in West Texas

Beau’s Tiny Diner

1001 South Alamo Street, San Antonio’s King William Historical District

This new all-day cafe and diner opened in April, offering a menu of comforting breakfast staples and sandwiches. The breakfast menu is filled with hearty favorites, including classic Benedicts, burritos, honeybuns, parfaits, chicken and waffles, fill-the-plate pancakes, omelets, biscuits, and gravy, and more. Diners in search of lunch or dinner options can peruse its list of sandwiches, which includes a patty melt, a three-cheese grilled cheese, and a Reuben, or take their pick from the Not Breakfast section, which offers pozole, green chicken enchiladas, smothered pork chop, chicken-fried steak, and meatloaf.

Otto’s Ice House

111 Newell Avenue, San Antonio

Levi Goode, the chef behind Houston’s Credence and owner of family hospitality group Goode Company, opened this new ice house in the Pearl in March. This playful, boozy dedication to Otto Koehler, the somewhat controversial Texas founder of the Pearl, offers casual Texas-meets-pub fare, including street tacos, bratwurst on buns, Frito pies, nachos, and German soft pretzels, as well as dishes like pollo asado and redfish on the half shell. The drinks will be a primary focus, with micheladas, Damn Goode margaritas, honeysuckle frozen drinks, and Otto’s Last Shot, a refreshing play on a Holland Razor Blade made with mezcal, lemon, honey, habanero, and cayenne.

Otto’s Ice House

Alamo Biscuit Company & Panaderia River Walk

849 E Commerce Street, #197, San Antonio

This iconic San Antonio breakfast restaurant and panaderia has opened a new outpost on the River Walk, which is open 24 hours a day. Expect a broad menu filled with its signature biscuits, Benedicts, breakfast plates featuring pancakes and waffles, pizza by the slice, sandwiches, tacos, and more. Alamo also features a full bar, offering an assortment of cocktails, including micheladas, margaritas, and a concha martini.